Whiteley Reception

Friday 21st November A huge thankyou for all the money you have raised for our nursery rhyme singalong. You have been incredibly generous and have raised £ 1905! We are very grateful and we will let you know how your generous donations have benefitted your children. Thankyou! This week we have continued our work on the book 'Wow! said the owl' by the author Tim Hopgood. We have been into the woodlands for a scavenger hunt to try to match the colours from the story to the world around us. Then we described what we have seen.  We thought carefully about the words we use in a sentence and remembered to use a capital letter, finger spaces and a full stop.  We have added an adjective (describing word) to a simple sentence e.g.  I can see beautiful red butterflies. If you would like to listen to the story with your child please click here. Phonics This week we have introduced the letters g, o, c and k.  We have learnt the names of the letters, the sounds they make and the ...

 Friday 14th November This week, we have been reading the book 'Wow! said the owl' by the author Tim Hopgood.  This is a story about a little owl who decides to stay awake all day instead of going to sleep at night like they are supposed to.  The little owl discovers a world bursting with colour.  We have talked about the front cover, the title and the author.  We have been joining in with the repeated text all together.  We have also discussed the meaning of some of the words to expand our vocabulary. Click here to listen to the story 'Wow! said the owl'. Phonics This week in phonics we have been learning the sounds of the letters 'i', 'n', 'm' and 'd'.  We have read words containing these sounds and practiced making CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) words on magnetic boards.  We have also learnt to form the letters using our school handwriting style. Phase 2 phonic actions and sounds Bug Club Please check your child's reading log to...

 Friday 7th November This week, we have been learning about Bonfire night and why we celebrate it.  We have listened to the story of Guy Fawkes and learnt to mix our own paint colours to create firework pictures. Phonics This week, we have begun learning the sounds in Phase 2. We have introduced the letters s, a, t, and p. We have learnt the names of the letters, the sounds they make and the accompanying action. We have identified words that contain these letters e.g. sun begins with 's', tap has 'a' in the middle. Bug Club Well done to all those children who have completed the first part of the Bug Club challenge and have received their special sticker. Maths A key focus this week is deepening the children's understanding of 5 as a quantity by linking the number itself to the 5 fingers on one hand.  We have sung and learnt the number rhyme 5 little peas. click here to listen The children have explored ways to present numbers to 5 using both their fingers and object...

  Friday 24th October This week in school, we have been learning all about Autumn.  We went for a walk in our woods and looked for signs of Autumn.  We talked about the different colours of the leaves and what is happening to the trees.  We tried 'forest bathing' and listened carefully to the sounds around us as we watched the swaying of the trees. You may like to look for signs of Autumn on your walk to and from school. Phonics This week in phonics we have been playing 'I spy' thinking carefully about the first sound you can hear in a word e.g. 'd' for dog, 's' for spade etc  We have also been segmenting and blending CVC words e.g. 'h-a-t' ='hat', 'l-o-g'='log' etc. Maths This week in maths, we have been comparing quantities.  We have modelled the language 'more than' and 'fewer than' to describe how may objects are in a set. We have used a variety of objects of different size and colour to help the childr...

 Friday 17th October This week at school we have been learning the nursery rhyme "London Bridge is falling down".  We have discussed the history behind the rhyme and talked about why we have bridges and what they do.  The children have experimented with construction kits to build stable bridges and other structures.  We learnt how to cut masking tape safely with scissors and used it to join boxes together to make bridges. Phonics This week in phonics we have practised using robot voices to segment the sounds in words eg. h-a-m and j-a-m. We have also played games to identify pairs of words that rhyme. Please see your individual phonics booklet for lots of ideas of games to play at home. Bug club The school code to access Bug Club is  krm6 . Your child's log in details are in their yellow Phonics booklet.  As you can see, there is some great guidance about how to use these picture books to develop your child's early Phonic skills.  Thank you to those fa...

                                   Grand Old Duke of York This week at school, we have been expanding our repertoire of nursery rhymes by learning and singing 'The Grand Old Duke of York'. We have spent time talking about our favorite books this week and sharing books with your children. We have introduced them to book language such as front cover, back cover, author, illustrator and blurb. It is really important to explore the whole book when sharing a book with your child. Start of the day Its been great to see so many children coming into class independently. We would like to take this opportunity to let you know that the gate will be locked in the morning at 8:55. If you arrive after this time, please go to the office. Phonics This week we have been looking at the book "The missing Button". We have been practicing saying in sentences what is happening in the pictures and making up our own ...

Friday 3rd October This week we have been singing the nursery rhyme 'Humpty Dumpty'. We are encouraging the children to join in with the words and actions. We have been practising building a stable wall for Humpty Dumpty to sit on. We talked about overlapping the bricks so the wall does not fall over. Maths This week, the children have been taking part in activities that draw attention to the purpose of counting – to find out ‘how many’ objects there are. They have practised developing 1:1 correspondence, by counting numbers at the same time as moving or touching the objects with a finger or a wand. Phonics This week we have been concentrating on listening for the initial sounds of words eg. snowflake starts with a 's' sound. We have been learning to play 'I spy'. Bug club The school code to access Bug Club is  krm6 . Your child's log in details are in their reading log. Have you managed to log into bug club?  Let us know if you have any problems. Nursery rh...

Friday 26th September This week we have been singing the nursery rhyme 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star'. We are encouraging the children to join in with actions. We have been working on the children's use of scissors.  Lots of children have found this very challenging.  Please see the correct way to hold scissors below. Right handed scissor hold Left handed scissor hold You might like to give your child opportunities to use scissors at home.  Perhaps they could help you by snipping the tops of green beans when you are cooking.  They could practise snipping the tops of paper tubes to make models. At school we use scissors like the ones below.  If you don't have any scissors please let us know. Click here to find a link to the scissors that we use at school. Maths In maths this week the children have been encouraged to quantify sets of objects by subitising rather than counting. When subitising, children can say how many there are in a small group of objects by 'just...

   Friday 19th September We have been learning and performing the nursery rhymes "Incy Wincy Spider" and "Little Miss Muffet". Over the next few weeks, we will be learning lots of different nursery rhymes and on Tuesday 21st October, we will be having a nursery rhyme dress up day and sponsored nursery rhyme singing event at school.  Further details will follow nearer the time. Phonics At Whiteley Primary School in Phonics, we first focus on Phase 1 which is all about the children tuning into sounds  around them and getting ready to begin developing oral blending and segmenting skills.   Phase One  concentrates on developing children's speaking and listening skills and lays the foundations for the phonic work which starts in Phase 2.   The main purpose of this weeks Phonics was to develop children's listening skills and awareness of sounds in the environment. Mrs Pretty has recorded a video to demonstrate a listening game that you might like to pla...